DON’T FRET ABOUT THE MULE GOING BLIND, JUST KEEP LOADING THE WAGON

This was said to me by an old saw of a man, when I explained to him my concern about a very wet monsoonal India…yep, just keep loading the wagon…you’ll get there!

EVERYBODY HAS THEIR OWN SHANGRI-LA

In speaking with a friend the other day who I hadn’t spoken with for a long time, I told him my news of my book OVERLAND being published in India. I also told him I was going to go there and tour around India to promote the book as well as detox from the pressures of western society. His reaction was “Well, I would go on a boat in the Caribbean and tour around there.” I said that sounds nice and all, but also sounds kind of boring. I said everybody has their own Shangri-la. Meaning to each his own, right? My Shangri-la is actually Shangri-la, somewhere in the Himalayas where it’s beautiful, peaceful, spiritual, you know, Shangri-la! In reality Shangri-la doesn’t exist.

From Wikipedia: Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, “Shangri-La” is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.


That’s what I’m talking about. What’s your Shangri-la?

RANDOM HAPPENS

How repeatedly do you find yourself using this word, random? Often? Me too. We all know what it means, something that happens that was not planned…out of the blue, accidental, indiscriminate, arbitrary...random!
In my circles and elsewhere on TV, it is a commonly used word, right up there with “whatever”. But the word whatever (I use it too, I’m not preaching here) seems so hopeless and misplaced. Let’s face it. Life is tougher these days. We all have to live with less. It’s easy to fall into a misguided way of thinking. I’m glad “random” has become in vogue as it gives some lift to the whatever way of being. If it is upbeat, random can be positively inspiring. And when that happens so unexpectedly, it feels so good and so surreal. Of course, there is bad random, but “let’s not go there”.
What’s a decent example of good random? Meeting someone that you share so much in common with? It feels sublime to share familiarity with someone you hadn’t met before. That somebody can become an instant friend, maybe for life. And good friends are a good thing!
Regular readers of my posts know where this is going. Of course this has something to do with OVERLAND. This is what this blog is all about. Danny has a string of random encounters in his travels sprinkled throughout Overland. Poetic license? Perhaps. But Overland is a novel, where in a fictional world, anything can happen. And it does for Danny.
But in the cyber world of Facebook and the like, randomness has become common, and that is a good thing too! When Danny traveled about in 1979, there was no high technology. There was just pure luck, and randomness. Find out about the random in Danny’s world.
I’m sure you have had your sure of random encounters in your travels, and if you did, I’m sure they were memorable!

What was your random encounter? Did it change your life forever?